Chapter Two
What could have been an hour meeting and an email turned into two hours.
On any other day the time wouldn’t matter. But with the sky dumping like some kind of dystopian megastorm created by the earth’s polarity shifting, and the very real leak in her roof, two hours was too long.
When Marcus finally wrapped up their meeting, Luna was quick to jump to her feet.
“Let me walk you out,” Nate said.
Luna slid the papers into her oversize purse and pushed her chair in. “That won’t be necessary, Mr. Warren.”
“If we’re going to be working together, I have to insist you call me Nate.”
She smiled. “I hate to rush, Nate, but I have a date with a roofing contractor.”
“That doesn’t sound fun,” Marcus said.
“As long as I don’t get home to an unwanted swimming pool in my living room, I’ll be fine.” She hiked her purse on her shoulder and stood tall. “You have my number,” she told Nate. “I respond to text messages quicker than emails. Anything urgent, text me please.”
“Will do.” Nate smiled.
With a nod to Marcus, she said, “I’ll be in touch.”
Luna stopped at the reception desk long enough to retrieve her coat but still made it off the floor before Nate left the conference room.
The rain made the trip home a little longer. You’d think with as much rain as Washington state received, the locals would all have driving in it down pat.
But there was always someone who pushed their bald tires a little too far, or ignored that brake light flashing, and ended up on the side of the freeway.
Still, Luna had twenty minutes to spare before her appointment time.
She entered the house shaking off the rain she’d accumulated from the short walk from the detached garage.
Luna hung her coat in the mudroom and dropped her purse and keys on the kitchen table on her way to the attic.
Her four-legged welcoming committee met her at the top of the first flight of stairs.
She bent down, picked up her cat, and kept walking. “Did you miss me?”
Midnight, aptly named for her completely black coat and dark eyes, head butted her chest.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
She rounded the corner and took the second flight of stairs; at the top there was a door that led to the attic.
Luna set Midnight down and pushed the door open. The cold from the attic made her shiver.
She propped it open to hear the contractor if he arrived early and went to check on the damage.
Old homes had huge attics, and this Victorian built at the turn of the twentieth century was no different.
Some of Luna’s earliest memories were visiting her grandmother and escaping to the attic with her siblings on days that were simply too miserable to go outside.
A couple of round windows let in natural light.
The raw lumber floors were stacked with dusty boxes holding everything from Christmas decorations to childhood memories.
There was an old crib that every Canning child had used .
. . and furniture that really should have gone to Goodwill but was put up there “just in case.”
And a half a dozen modern day pots and pans to catch the drips from the leaking roof.
Under the largest puddle maker, Luna had placed a plastic tub used to put ice and drinks in for backyard parties.
A good two inches of water sat in the bottom. The drip she’d left when she went to her meeting was more of a trickle now.
She walked around the vast space to see if there were any new leaks and luckily found none.
Back at the stairs, she glanced around for her cat. “C’mon, Midnight. It’s too cold to leave this door open.”
Her cat looked at her with what could only be described as disagreement. An attic was a great place to keep her busy.
Luna tapped a fingernail on the door and acted like she was going to close it.
Midnight got the message and walked over . . . slowly, and hesitated before walking into the hall.
“You can play up here later. I promise.”
Her tail went up before leading the way down the stairs.
“Luna? You home?” Miley called from somewhere on the first floor.
“Yeah.”
“I rushed back in case you got caught in your meeting.”
Luna met Miley in the foyer.
“Thanks. The meeting went long.”
Miley looked at the ceiling. “How bad is it?”
“Worse than this morning, not as bad as it could be considering the rain coming down.”
“At least the wind isn’t blowing.”
They walked together into the kitchen. “I need to get this patched up before the next real storm.”
Miley pulled her phone from her back pocket before sitting on a stool at the small kitchen island. “How was your meeting?”
“Interesting.”
Miley looked up from the screen. “Interesting how?”
Luna opened the fridge to see if anything looked like a good option for a quick lunch. “Marcus is contracting with a PI he wants me to work with on this case.”
“You’ve done that kind of thing before, right?”
“Some. But mainly with his in-house people. This guy is an ex-Fed with an extensive fraud investigative background. The case is going to require a lot from him.”
“And you?”
“We’ll see. Numbers don’t lie.”
“People do.”
“Good thing or I wouldn’t have a job,” Luna said, laughing.
Luna closed the fridge and turned to her friend. “I wonder how good this guy is at spotting the liars,” she mused.
“Not as good as you, I bet.”
“I credit Nana. She had a pretty good bullshit barometer.”
The Victorian home had been hers. The woman had been as eccentric as she was independent.
She’d married seven or eight times; Luna had lost count.
She was fairly certain she’d married and divorced Luna’s biological grandfather twice.
Did that count as two? It didn’t matter.
If it wasn’t for the fact that the Victorian home had been in a trust given to her from Luna’s great-grandmother, the house would have been gone in one of the divorce settlements.
“When is this roof guy supposed to get here?” Miley asked.
Luna glanced at the clock on the wall. “Between noon and three.” It was twelve ten.
“Let’s hope he doesn’t flake and use the rain as an excuse.”
“If rain was an excuse, he’d be out of business.”
Miley slid off the stool. “I’ll be in my room. I have to finish that online class for my CEs.”
“You’re not done with that yet?”
Miley smiled. “Why do now what I can put off until tomorrow?”
Miley was a nurse. She worked twelve-hour shifts in the emergency room three days a week.
And despite what she said about procrastination, she was the most dependable person Luna knew.
She simply didn’t worry about shit that didn’t matter.
And when you spent your days in real life and death situations, not a lot mattered.
Luna’s phone pinged in her purse.
“Maybe it’s the roof guy.”
Miley hesitated on her way out of the room.
Luna opened her messages.
The number was unknown, but the message made sense.
I owe you a coffee.
It had to be Nate.
Mr. Venti.
A slow smile accompanied a shake of her head.
“Well, well . . . that’s a new look for you,” Miley said.
“Nothing like that. It’s the Fed guy.”
Miley stepped closer and looked at the screen. “Coffee?”
“Yeah . . .” Luna started to text back. “He knocked mine out of my hand.”
“He did what?”
Yes, you do, she replied.
“He wasn’t watching where he was walking and bumped into me,” Luna said while staring at her phone.
“Oh. Was this before or after the meeting?” Miley asked.
“Before. And when I walked into the conference room, he was talking shit about ‘the distracted woman who dropped her coffee.’ You should have seen his face when he realized who I was and what I’d heard.”
Miley coughed on a laugh. “Bruh . . . did you call him out?”
“No. I let him squirm.”
“Look at you being all sass.”
Luna dropped her phone on the table and renewed her search for something to eat. “It’s always better to have someone owing you something than the other way around.”
“You’re ruthless.” Miley sighed as she started to leave the room again. “You know where I am if roof guy is creepy.”
“Okay.”
The phone pinged again.
And an apology.
Saying she deserved one and giving one were not the same.
That, too.
Luna leaned against the kitchen table, staring at her phone.
It took a few seconds for his reply.
You’re enjoying this.
Damn right she was. Did the Feds teach you these investigative skills? Or were you born with them?
It took even longer for his comeback.
I’ll tell you over coffee.
Fine, just try and let me drink mine this time, she told him.
Touché. I’ll be in touch.
“Was I born with them?” Nate found himself laughing for the first time in what felt like forever.
He plugged his phone in to charge and sat it on one of the many U-Haul boxes littering the floor of his apartment.
Seattle had been his first choice after walking away from DC. Even with the endless rain, he loved the Pacific Northwest. Maybe because of the rain. It fit, the gray skies and dreary, drawn-out days. It made the sunshine and warmth even sweeter when it finally happened.
He picked his butt up off the lone couch and went into his kitchen.
On the counter sat a half-empty box labeled “Utensils.”
He’d been in the apartment exactly two weeks. The moving boxes had only just arrived.
This was the second time he’d moved his life from one coast to the other. Those cross-country moves had a way of making you get rid of a lot of crap. The only belongings he’d shoved into his SUV for the drive were clothes, his computer, and a sleeping bag.
Outside of an air mattress he bought on arrival, he’d lived with next to nothing.
Even now, the two-bedroom apartment housed only a bed, couch, TV, and small dining table.
And everything for a kitchen.
Nate removed the butcher block set of knives and took each piece out to ensure they made the trip without damage.
His phone rang, halting his efforts to get settled in.
A picture of his mom lit the screen.
He answered on speaker. “Hey.”
“Hey back. How did the meeting go?”
Taking his phone with him, he returned to the knives. “Good. I like the team I’ll be working with. The attorney seems personable. Efficient.”
“Those attributes sound contradicting.”
Nate thought about that for a moment. “In most cases I agree. Marcus knows how to delegate, hence the efficiency. Personable because he asked all the ‘how has the move been . . . did I need anything or recommendations on where to go and what to do.’”
“Well good. I hope he realizes your worth.”
Nate paused. “Ahh, gee thanks, Mom.”
“Can’t a mother acknowledge how good her son is at his job?”
“I’m teasing.”
“I know,” she said. “What about your stuff?”
“It came yesterday.”
“Anything broken?”
“I’m unpacking now. So far, so good.”
“You sure you don’t want me to fly up and help?”
They’d been through this. She wanted to help him unpack, which he absolutely didn’t want her to do. And if she showed up now and saw how little he’d taken with him, she’d be back and forth to furniture stores and Costco to clutter his space.
“I’ll be ready for you in spring.”
“You don’t have to be ready.”
“I’m a grown-ass man, Mom.” A statement he used often. She wasn’t a helicopter parent, not even overbearing . . . just an empty nesting semi-retired woman who needed more hobbies.
“Okay, okay. I’ll drop it. But if something changes . . .”
“You’ll be the first to know,” he told her.
“I’ll let you get back to it.”
“I’ll call you over the weekend,” he said, hoping that his commitment to the call would keep her from doing a daily check in.
He’d signed a one-year lease. Initially he only wanted six months. Which he felt was plenty of time to find a house in a neighborhood that met his needs.
Sadly, landlords didn’t like the six-month thing. And the ones that were okay with shorter leases were in less desirable areas.
A year it was. And if he found a place he wanted to buy before that year was up, he’d deal with his landlord then.
It took the remainder of the afternoon to unpack and wash everything before finding it a place in the kitchen to live.
He’d tackle a grocery store tomorrow, tonight was leftover Chinese food and his laptop.
The files Marcus had sent over were the beginning of a very extensive case. His first one in the private sector. The kind that would set the tone for this new adventure. Yet when Nate logged in to his computer, it wasn’t Joel Mercier’s name, or any of the man’s companies, that he looked up.
It was Luna Canning.
Was she really as good as Marcus boasted?
His first hit was her LinkedIn page. Her professional photographs were exactly that. Stiff back, fake smile, and likely taken shortly after college graduation. His conclusion came from the wisdom lacking in her eyes in the picture, which he knew was there now.
And from the long list of clients praising her abilities, that wisdom had been earned. She graduated college summa cum laude and interned with a prominent CPA group in Seattle during her senior year. Then worked with the same CPA firm for five years before breaking away and working for herself.
Bold move that young.
Nate looked forward to learning why she took that leap.
A question that would happen over coffee.
When he searched for the more personal area of Miss Canning’s life, he was surprised to see that her social media persona was limited. Her Facebook page was at best a memoir of college and late high school. The usual suspects of school drama and selfies with her friends.
She’d been tagged in more pictures than she posted herself.
Same with her Instagram account.
Neither of which had been updated in a few years.
And both of which were public.
If not for those tagged photographs, it would seem that Luna walked away from any kind of online life.
Smart.
Nate had accounts on both platforms that he used primarily to find others, not to tell the world his life story. Working for the government always came with risk.
Criminal fraud investigations had a way of pissing people off.
Especially the guilty.
The less they could find out about the people working to send them to jail, the better.
Even though Luna seemed to have taken that same path, Nate still found a trail of friends that could easily help him find her exact location if he wanted to dig deep enough.
When he found himself writing names of the people who posted pictures of her, he stopped.
She wasn’t the client. Looking up her professional contacts and recommendations was one thing, finding out where she lived and where she hung out for fun when she wasn’t working was another.
Nate closed the windows involving Luna Canning and started his work clock when he opened the first file for the case.